


A Song Called...Murder!

by kalx58



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Banter, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Bisexual Rey (Star Wars), Degradation, Dirty Talk, Disco, Dominant Ben Solo, Edging, Exhibitionism, F/M, Hux/Poe - Freeform, Name-Calling, Shy Ben Solo, Soft Ben Solo, Vaginal Fingering, Verbal Humiliation, basically just 16k of dirty talk and banter, but not with rey, competitive dirty talk, mention of past hookups, mild settlers of catan slander, of the dirty talk in public variety, the vibe is basically googly-eyed nerdy ben saying "you want me to call you a WHAT"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:06:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27202909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalx58/pseuds/kalx58
Summary: Don't invite Ben and Rey to your murder mystery party.She feels her excited grin collapse into a frown. “Wait, what?”“We shouldn’t leave the party.” He gives her an unbothered smile. “Let’s just keep talking, Rey.”
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 78
Kudos: 230





	A Song Called...Murder!

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thanks to [boba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobaheadshark/pseuds/bobaheadshark) for looking at the beginning of this and giving me her genius insight into making it hornier, disco-ier and just better all around! Go read her [Succession AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26931307) if you haven't already!

“It’s something weird,” Rose says, clacking along in her heels. “Armand?”

“No,” Rey says, adjusting her blazer. “Weirder.”

“Armitage,” Finn says, looking at his phone, shifting the 12-pack from one hand to the other.

“You don’t think they’ll actually make us, like, actually do this thing?” Rey asks as they cross the street. She’s never been to a murder mystery party before. Maybe it’s the kind of thing everyone abandons after two drinks. 

“God, I hope not. I can barely remember my character’s name,” Rose says, walking carefully up the stairs. 

“I don’t know. Poe always talks about how intense this guy is,” Finn says, tucking his phone into his red velvet blazer. 

“I mean, it’s a party. We can still talk to people,” Rey asks as Rose knocks on the door. “Right?”

There better be people to talk to, she thinks grimly. 

When they walk into the tiny, warmly-lit, house, Rey learns that murder mystery parties are small parties. Like, very small. There only seem to be—she counts them—seven other people there. Fuck. 

She’s only here because Poe, a coworker of Finn’s from the tutoring center, a PhD who also tutors math, had called him in a panic: food poisoning, a surprise parent visit, a devastating breakup. He needed three warm bodies for his boyfriend’s murder mystery party that night. Oh, and costumes were not optional. Sorry. 

Rey liked Poe. She’d met his boyfriend a few times. He seemed fine enough. Kind of grumpy, but maybe Poe was into that. Rey was, on occasion. But she hadn’t really been paying attention to the specifics of what Finn had said as they’d all convened at the thrift store for last minute costumes. Something something, learn our parts, Finn had said, as she’d flipped through a rack of shirts. What the fuck was Nancy Evans—“a long-suffering assistant...with something to hide!”—supposed to wear? (Rose, whose character card described her as “a well-heeled wife and former songstress with the voice of angel...and the resentments of a devil!” had a much easier time, beelining to the dresses.) No, Rey had never been to a murder mystery before. But it was still a party. And oh boy, did Rey know parties. And murder mystery or not, Rey had a goal for tonight’s. 

It’s the end of winter break. New Year’s Eve and a new semester of college—her last—are rapidly approaching. And Rey had a rule: she didn’t hook up with people during the first half of the semester. Yes, Rose, it was kind of arbitrary. Yes, Finn, she was denying herself. Intentionally. Rey knows her wants, and they spill all over everything if she’s not careful. 

Her first semester, wild with the freedom of being unshackled from the loneliness of foster care, she’d gotten dizzy with how many interesting, attractive people there were at her college, and all the different, new and wonderfully diverting things they could do with each other. It had all been very educational, and much more interesting than school. But her horniness had caused her grades—which had always been effortless A’s—to flatline. 

That couldn’t last. Not when Rey had plans for her future. (And more immediately, scholarships to maintain.) So she figured out a logical way forward. No hookups or sex until midterms. No sex with another person until she had at least a solid foundation of completed assignments, a sense of how hard she had to work going forward and how much time she could waste with another person. If she wanted to date someone, she waited to see if she still wanted to post-midterms. If she wanted sex, she pulled out her vibrator. It joined her other rules and regulations, the calculated, necessary tangle of self-denial she’d constructed for herself: the tastiest beer she could afford on her food budget, exactly how much money she had in her account until her next scholarship disbursement, the envelope of cash in her desk drawer already set aside for her laptop’s inevitable, upcoming death. 

It didn’t mean that she wanted less. Just that she had to be strategic in her sluttiness. Which meant that school breaks, like now, were where she flourished. She angled herself toward people at bars, made out in a dark corner of someone’s housewarming, had a Swedish exchange student named Kim eat her out her in the international student dorm. She got it all out of her system before she had to return to a relentless schedule of all-day classes, her workstudy job, her other job in a cafe and her sanity-saving time with friends. 

And tonight was the last Saturday of winter break. The last night that Rey could be free, could find someone to smile at and touch and then easily part from to rejoin her friends. Someone who, after tonight, she wouldn’t think about for any longer than a fond smile or masturbation session a month or two into her chastity. 

Unfortunately—

“It’s not that kind of party, Rey,” Poe says, looking at her seriously, after they’d made small talk and she’d—casually, really—asked if there were any notable single people in attendance tonight. “This isn’t a party where people hook up. This is where you...test your mettle as an amateur sleuth in the cutthroat and dangerous setting of the high-powered, Los Angeles music industry. At least that’s what it said on the box.” 

She nods, and he turns away. For a little while, she does actually try to work on the mystery. It’s introduced: Jimmy Berry, music industry titan, has been viciously murdered. (“A Song...Called Murder,” Poe says, waving the box around. “Do you get it?”) And all of them—Rey, the put-upon personal assistant; Poe, the session musician desperate for cash; Finn, the owner of a rival record label—have motives. 

She talks to people. She drums her fingers to the disco Poe puts on as a background soundtrack. She looks at the death certificate: strangulation. She adjusts her blazer. It’s all very...structured. Rey doesn’t like that. Especially on one of her last nights of freedom. So she keeps prowling around the party, eyes sharp for anyone interesting to—talk to. At least, at first. 

She decides quickly. Him, in the corner. Tall, dark hair, bending to talk to someone, clutching a beer like his life depends on it. Older. They make brief eye contact while she’s laughing loudly at something Finn says. She watches him for a little while. He keeps frowning. He frowns at Hux. He frowns at the beer selection. He frowns at the clue they’re supposed to be looking at. 

Maybe he’ll frown at her and call her a slut while he fucks her. Yep, that’s what she wants from tonight. She swigs from her water bottle, decision made. 

“Ben? He’s a good friend of Hux’s. Shy. Kind of a downer sometimes, actually. Getting his PhD in computer sci—wait.” Poe’s voice turns suspicious. She forgets that he’s seen her in action. Why?”

“No reason,” Rey says casually, already casting her eyes around to find this Ben guy again. “Just making sure he’s not a serial killer, or a Republican, or anything.” 

“Rey. Rey. Look at me.” He snaps his fingers in her face. “You’ve got that look. This isn’t a place to find someone to hook up with. You need to pay attention to the mystery—” 

She smiles placidly at Poe, patting his shoulder and walking away, threading her way through the party to the dark haired guy. She finds him in the kitchen. Alone, leaning against the sink, frowning at nothing. Good, she thinks. Keep that energy. She opens the fridge and heaves a loud, overwhelmed sigh at the options. 

“Do you have any recommendations?” she asks, turning her head to look back and smile at him, still bent in front of the fridge. “There are so many options.” Has any guy ever been able to resist an opportunity to opine about a beer selection? 

That seems to startle him. He looks up at her, surprised. His eyes are dark and his lips are large and he’s dressed a little ridiculously, with a leather jacket open over a white undershirt, a gold chain hanging around his neck. She still wants to fuck him. She likes that he’s a kitchen guy. She likes parties and talking to people, but she has her own limits, where she flips from fun party Rey to cranky irritable Rey. 

“Um. The gose is good. Kind of salty.” His voice is deep and slightly hesitant. 

She thought he’d walk over to her. She turns back to the fridge, pretending to look, even though she’s already decided, and bends deeper, sticking out her ass. “Which one?”

He walks over and points to the beer in front of her. “That one.” 

“Oh, thanks.” She reaches past it and grabs an IPA. She closes the fridge and wipes her cold hand on her pants, turning toward him and holding it out. She lets her interest show in her smile. “Hi. I’m Rey.”

He looks at her beer, the one he hadn’t recommended, and her outstretched hand. He shakes it, grip firm, hand huge and warm. “Ben.”

Does Hux have one of those small apartment fridges? Because Ben looks, like, comparably sized. “Nice to meet you. How do you know Hux?” she asks. She grins up at him, letting her eyes trail down his body in obvious appraisal. 

He doesn’t answer, doesn’t smile back, doesn’t check her out in turn. He does stare, though in a way she can’t quite parse. Is it an I-want-to-fuck you stare? Or a not-interested-go-away-stare? She feels some defensiveness—never an emotion she’s that far away from, if she’s being honest—start to rise. 

“We’ve met before.” His voice is so low, she gets distracted for a second, imagining how it might sound saying certain things to her, that she doesn’t process what he’s saying at first.

She racks her brain. Oh—probably that night at the bar, a month or so ago at the beginning of break. Her attention had been otherwise occupied. Fatima, a friend of Poe’s had been there, and she hadn’t been wearing a bra. Rey's focus had been on Fatima’s ribbed white tank top, the top button undone. She’d stared at the thin gold necklace disappearing between Fatima’s boobs, wanting to take its place. 

And now she remembers. There had been a tall guy—Ben, apparently, who she had indeed been introduced to—sitting next to Fatima, watching as Rey had shown her how she could shotgun a beer just by pressing her thumb into the can. No key necessary. Fatima had been impressed. (But she had also been incredibly boring, and Rey had left alone. Later that night, still horny, she’d sighed and called Jacob, a dumb, lanky soccer player, and they’d both gone down on each other.) 

Ben opens his mouth then closes it, nodding even though she hasn’t said anything. He grimaces a little, like he regrets reminding her of her forgetfulness. (Which Rey agrees is kind of an awkward move. Who does that?) But she likes his mouth, so she tries one last tactic, to show him that she’s sorry she didn’t remember him, but it doesn't matter now. 

“Are you sure?” She takes a small step towards him. Not too close, but enough to make it obvious. She flicks her eyes down his body again. “I would have remembered you.”

Extremely corny, yes. But an unambiguous message is required on nights like these, when the clock is ticking and Rey wants him to know that she’d like to find a horizontal surface together. 

She sees him understand: a blink, a too-quick sip of beer. She waits to see his reaction—maybe a step back, a see-you-around rejection, but hopefully a smile, some flirty joke about her bad memory, something she can pivot off, and she can laugh and touch his arm and then go on from there. 

He doesn’t do anything, though. Just blinks silently. Rey wants to tap her foot. Well. She’s put it out there. Now he can decide. She smiles at him once more as she leaves the kitchen. 

* * *

“So, where are you from?” 

“Oh, well, I came here when I was six and don’t know a lot about my birth parents. Where in England are you from?” Rey asks interestedly. “Sometimes I worry I’m losing my accent, but the more time I spend talking to someone from there, I feel like it gets stronger—”

“No,” Hux seethes. “In the game.”

“Ah.” She tries to not to look at her palm, where she’d written notes about her character earlier that night. Unfortunately, her beer has caused it to fade into a smudgy mess. 

“I grew up wealthy in Brentwood with musician parents, but due to a reversal in family fortunes—in part due to Jimmy’s machinations, as he owned their masters—my family has nothing. Now I’m working for Jimmy as his all-knowing assistant,” she recites, proud of how she’s remembered. 

“You’re not supposed to say your entire motive! I’m supposed to draw it out of you!” Hux snaps, turning away from her and stalking away, shaking his head. 

Someone behind her laughs. “You’re not very good at this.” 

Rey turns. Kitchen Ben, out of the kitchen and drinking one of the beers she’d chosen earlier. Still not smiling, but looking a little more relaxed, and she thinks he’s trying to make a joke. As he walks over to him, she sees him check her out, the way she did with him. She likes her thrifted outfit: a satin, low cut tank-top she’d grabbed from the pajama section tucked into black, high-waisted crepe pants that she figures she can reuse on internship interviews, topped with a blazer. With her bun, she thinks like a sexy business lady. She hopes Ben agrees. 

“That’s very rude,” she says, smiling. “Who are you even supposed to be?”

“I,” he says, gesturing at his outfit, “am Detroit rapper Billy Boy.”

“Hmm,” she says, looking at his gold chain. She wants to tug him by that chain so she can kiss him on his full mouth. “Tell me about Billy.” 

“He’s angry. Tough upbringing. Distant parents. Jimmy hasn’t supported his career the way he promised. What about you?”

“Well, I’ve thought extremely hard about this—”

“Obviously, I could tell from what you were telling Hux—”

“And I think Nancy is extremely boring. You know. Only watches true crime reruns she already knows the ending to. Meal preps chicken and broccoli every week. Has sex with the lights off.” She says the last part with casualness, looking to see his response. If he has that little frown again, she’ll abandon this quest, throw herself wholeheartedly into the mystery. (Or—let’s be real—pursue someone else, someone less appealing, because she’s already horny and she will get laid tonight. Somehow.) 

A surprised, pleased smile spreads across his face. They’re in a corner of the living room, the rest of the party nearby, but no one close enough to hear. “Yeah? Poor Nancy.” 

“Yeah. I really feel for her. She doesn’t know that there’s a whole wide world out there.” 

“Like what?” 

She says it because of the size of his lower lip, because of the weirdly-attractive chain, because soon she won’t be able to have sex at all, and she might as well have something interesting to look back on while she’s buried in homework for her upcoming heat transfer class. 

“Well. Maybe she’d actually like to be told what to do. Some rough sex. Let some big guy have his way with her.” She can’t get any more obvious. “You know what I mean?”

At first, he looks a little embarrassed. His cheeks flush. But then—

“Yeah. I do.” His voice is lower now, and she can tell he likes what she’s told him. 

He stares at her, but she doesn’t mind it this time, because now she knows he wants her, too. She looks around the room, looking for doors leading to rooms, rooms with beds. 

She inclines her head in the direction of the hallway. “Do you want to—”

“No.”

She feels her excited grin collapse into a frown. “Wait, what?” 

“We shouldn’t leave the party.” He gives her an unbothered smile. “Let’s just keep talking, Rey.” 

She keeps frowning. If this is really what he’s suggesting? Fine. She can play this game. She’ll play it so well he’ll be panting for her to drag him into one of those rooms. 

“Well,” she starts quietly. He bends his head toward her a little, and she leans against the wall. “So. What I’m into. That’s what you were wondering about?” 

He nods, a little quickly. 

“A whole bunch of stuff, honestly. A cornucopia of disgusting sexual acts—” 

He snorts. His smile is as attractive as his frown, she thinks. But, wait. She’s not supposed to be flirting. She knows he wants to fuck her. Now, she needs to inspire him to actually, you know. Do it. She sucks in a breath. 

“Sometimes if I’m with a guy I just want some nice, efficient oral then fucking. You know, a classic. I like when I’ve already come. Because then they can do it as hard as they want, or whatever position, and it feels good. I like the positions, obviously, where I can touch my clit and maybe come again.” 

His lips part. Then he seems to adjust. “I bet you do.” 

God, his voice. She swallows. She already feels warmer, just from saying this. But she’s not embarrassed. She will break him. 

“And, when I’m with a girl, I like making them come more than once. I like seeing how much they like what I’m doing. How they look when I’m done.” 

“You like tiring people out.” 

“Yeah. I guess.” I want to tire you out. She rubs her arm, feeling itchy and irritated. She looks up at him, letting her voice lilt. “Do you want me to keep talking? Or can we just—” 

“Yes.” His body is tilted toward her, but she’s facing out now, toward the rest of the party. “Keep talking. Please.” 

He sounds like he wants it, but he also seems like he needs more of a nudge. 

She takes a sip of her beer, and pushes off the wall. “I’m going to get another drink. See you around, Ben.” 

* * *

She forces herself to talk to other people for a little while. Someone offers her a joint, which she turns down. (She learned she can’t mix drinking and weed her freshman year, but had chosen to ignore that fact for way too long. God, she really had no idea how to handle herself back then, she thinks, semi-wistful and semi-horrified.) Someone from Ben’s lab, a kinda-boring guy named Mitaka, tells her all about being Jimmy’s driver, how Jimmy always followed the same routine, but gave him a night off the day of the murder after he dropped him off at the gym. At least Jimmy died doing what he loves, he says: spin class. 

He takes a breath, and she chances a glance at Ben, across the room, looking at a map of LA with Poe. She gives his crotch a speculative look. His dick is probably big. Right? She briefly contemplates asking Mitaka if he knows, but then he starts telling her all about how Jimmy was a good boss, and even got him a membership to the same gym.

“Mmm,” she says, barely listening. It’s warm. She takes her blazer off. Now she watches as Ben talks—awkwardly, it looks like—to Rose, who turns and walks away after a few nods. “Thanks for letting me know. I have to—”

She wanders over to Ben. He’s now sitting in an overstuffed armchair, not talking to anyone. She perches on the edge of the couch close to him. “So Billy. What are you into?” 

He shrugs. “Lots of stuff. What else do you like?” 

“Jesus, that’s helpful.” How can she propel him into sex if he’s so vague? Useless man. “Do you want me to leave you alone?”

He looks at her with his dark eyes. “No. I like a lot of things. Right now I like listening to you. I'll tell you if I don’t like something.” 

“Well. I was going to tell you how I like, on occasion, some light pain. Spanking, etcetera. Rough sex. Being told what to do.” 

His eyes dance around her face. He pauses. “You mentioned that.” 

“Is that stuff you’d like?” 

He sits back, getting comfortable. Throws an arm around the back of the chair. He takes a sip of beer before answering. “Yes.” 

She takes a sip of beer, too. She’s not going to say anything more until he does. She can see in his eyes that he recognizes what she’s trying to do.

They keep sipping their beers, smiling pleasantly at each other. Finally, he breaks. 

“Are you wearing a bra?” He looks at her sharply, maybe to see if it’s too much. It’s not. But he says it so quietly that she has to lean closer to hear him. The motion gives him a clearer view down her shirt. The heat from before returns. 

“I’m not. Doesn’t really work with this shirt.” 

“I think I can see your nipples getting hard. Or am I off base?” He raises his beer to his lips, taking a sip. She thinks of that mouth, those lips on her breasts, sucking and tugging on them, his eyes on her while he does it. 

“No. You’re right.” 

“It’s kind of handy that you’re not wearing a bra, then. I could just pull that strap down and lick them.” 

“Just lick?” She straightens up, arranging her face into a neutral expression. 

“Yeah. Because it might be kind of awkward while you’re sitting up like that. See that table, though?” 

She looks. The living room and kitchen flow together, and there’s a dining table in the corner, creating a sort of fake dining nook. “I could push you down over that table in front of everyone and do what I really wanted. Suck on them. Maybe bite them a little. You said you liked pain, right?” 

She crosses her legs and nods, trying to do it at a normal speed, to not reveal just how much she wants him to keep talking. She still can’t quite believe that they’re saying these things to each other. She likes sex. Has a healthy amount of it. But her desires and wants have never been zoomed in on quite so closely. The frankness is strange, but also freeing.

“I could lay you down on it. I’d do that for a while,” he says casually, crossing a leg over his knee. He takes another sip and holds the bottle up, squinting at how much he has left. “You’re so inappropriate you’d probably beg for me to fuck you right there on the table.”

“Would you?” She hates how she asks it so breathlessly. She’s supposed to be the one pushing him into incoherency. And him calling her inappropriate—she likes that. It reminds her of something. 

He lifts his beer, and drains it. “Nope.” He stands. And then he walks away. 

* * *

Someone sits down next to Rey a little while later, but she can’t even really listen while they natter on about how Jimmy’s body was found on his Bel-Air lawn, but the cops think he was killed at a prior location. She’s too turned on, and glares at Ben from across the room. He’s not looking at her, but she knows he can feel her eyes on her. Otherwise, why would he be holding himself so attractively, his large arms folded over his large chest like that?

“You’re his personal assistant,” the person—a friend of Hux’s? A brother? A co-worker?—asks. “Where was he going the night of his death?” 

“Um. The last thing I saw on his schedule was that he had a Pilates class,” Rey says, frowning at Ben. Does he have a drop of beer on his mouth? Would it be weird if she walked over and licked it off?

* * *

And then it becomes a game. 

“What do you think it means?” Ben asks in a polite tone, squatting down next to her. She’s looking at the clues Poe has laid out: Jimmy's obituary, and a picture of pointy footprint found next to the body, which looks like it’s some kind of specific kind of sneaker. A cleat, maybe?

“Well, I think it’s obvious,” she says, standing.

“What’s obvious?” 

“I’m not going to tell you. Maybe I want to solve the mystery. Don’t you?” 

He stands, smiling at her politely. “Are you wearing underwear?” 

A tightening in her gut, a quick inhale. She smiles back, just as politely. “Yep. Want to guess what color?”

Someone passes by them to look at the clue. They walk a few steps away. 

“I hate guessing. I don’t like being surprised.” 

“Really? You don’t like surprises?” What kind of freak is this guy?

“Nope. Not even when I was a kid.” 

“Like, even if someone was doing something nice—you’re a monster. Well, anyway. They’re tiny and red. Thong.” 

He looks a little faraway. “Ah.”

“I wore them because I thought I might get laid tonight. Unfortunately, the person I want, or thought I wanted, is being a pain in the ass.” 

“Sounds annoying.” 

“Yeah. It really is. I really want to fuck him,” she says blithely. “Are you thinking of what I’d look like? My ass, in these underwear?”

He doesn’t say anything, just looks at her. He nods. Silence. That’s a good sign. 

“You know,” she says, dropping her voice. Then she looks away, looking at the cat scratcher across the room. “Well, maybe it’s weird.”

“What is?” It’s rushed. She’s edging ahead. 

She bites her lip. “I shouldn't tell you.”

“Tell me what, Rey?” There’s an impatient tone to his voice, now. She licks her lips.

“You’re going to judge me.” 

“I won’t.” Someone walks by. She smiles at them. 

“Well, we were talking about things I liked earlier. I forget to mention that sometimes I like when someone puts a finger or two in my ass.” She gives Ben an innocent smile. She likes saying these things quietly, just to him, surrounded by people close enough to hear. She hopes this will be the thing that cracks him. “It just feels so good. I always come really fast. Especially during oral. Do you think that’s weird?” 

He forgets to breathe for a moment, she thinks, as she watches his face shift and rearrange. She takes a triumphant sip. Then his face changes, returning to the slightly-calculated, hyper-aware, intentionally-calm face that both infuriates her and—no. It’s only infuriating. It’s not hot. 

“No, I don’t think that’s weird, Rey.” His face looks so relaxed right now. She hates it. “Because I like that, too.” 

When she starts coughing, he pats her on the back with the most annoying, faux-concerned expression on his pretty face. 

* * *

“So I’m super stoked that you and Ben have bonded or whatever,” Poe says, speaking quickly, eyes flicking around. “But you need to talk to other people. You know. Circulate. Find out who killed Jimmy.” 

* * *

“God, the way you’re looking at me. You want me to bend you over this table so bad, don’t you Rey?”

They’re standing next to said table, which is covered in snacks and desserts. Hux and Finn are talking at the end of the table. Donna Summer is breathily singing that she’d love to love you, baby. Rey is twitchy and frustrated and doesn’t want to give Ben what he wants. “It might not be the right height.” They look at it. “Because you’re pretty tall.” 

“Hmm.” Ben flattens a palm on the dining table, fingers wide, like he’s appraising it on Antiques Roadshow. “I see your point. But I think we could figure it out.” 

“I don’t know.” She grabs a Bagel Bite and dumps some hot sauce from a nearby bottle on it. 

“I could lift you. We’d make it work. I’m very spatially aware.” 

“Yeah. I could tell. That’s why I want you to fuck me, actually.” 

He laughs, and she likes the relaxed look of it, even though it reminds her of how attractive she finds him, how much she does, indeed, want him to fuck her. Also. Why does she keep trying to make him laugh? It doesn’t matter. She rips into the Bagel Bite. 

“You never answered my question, though. Would you like it? If I did that? Bent you over, pulled down your pants? Held you up so you’d be comfortable?” 

She grabs a Ruffle and scoops it through some artichoke dip, giving him a bland, friendly smile. “Yeah. I would. I bet you would feel really good. I bet your hands would feel nice. And your dick. Obviously.” 

She pops the chip into her mouth, crunching it into dust. He watches her, looking distracted. She licks the salt off her lips as she makes eye contact. He looks away and swallows. 

Ha. She smiles innocently at him. “Was there more you were going to say? Or…”

He frowns. Rey suddenly remembers something Poe had said a few weeks ago. A few pitchers in, he’d once again been mooning about Hux. 

“He gets so cute when he’s competitive,” he’d said dreamily, looking off into the middle distance. “Him and his best friend play these board games, and they get so mad, and I just want to…”

Rey wonders if Ben is that competitive friend. Maybe he’s irritated by how much she’s trying to throw him, because he wants to be the one to win whatever weird competition this has morphed into. 

He might be. Because he has a look in his eyes now. He recognizes that she’s trying to throw him off, and he’s annoyed that she’s coming out ahead. (Who wins and loses in this terrible game? Rey can’t get it straight.) She gets the sense that this is familiar territory for him, wanting to be the best. She doesn’t even know Ben’s last name, but she already can tell that he doesn’t like being left breathless and wanting. 

“If I did bend you over this table, I bet you wouldn’t even care if everyone here saw.” His tone is quick and vicious. Startled, she raises her gaze to look at him. That’s a new dimension to this. And then she breaks their gaze, because the idea of that—everyone knowing how desperate she is to get fucked, him taking charge, controlling her, all reasonableness discarded—is startlingly appealing, and she doesn't want to give him the satisfaction. 

She looks at the chip bowl, then back up at him. Her desire must be obvious, because there’s a proud, satisfied smirk on that previously-unflappable face. Donna Summer sounds like’s orgasming, now. Rey is jealous.

“I bet you want it so bad that I could fuck you for a little bit, and then leave you here while I took a break. Got a beer. I’d just leave you on the table for everyone to see. Would you stay there if I asked you to?”

He’s looking at her too intensely now, eyes boring into hers. They’re supposed to be casual about this. Right? She doesn’t say anything, just continues looking at him. 

“Would you let me do that, Rey?”

She stares at the bowl of dip, feeling her face heat. Fuck, she wants to feel him. Inside of her, being a little mean, in the perfect way he’s doing now. But he’s also incredibly aggravating, because she knows that he’s not actually going to fold her over this table. At least, not anytime soon. And so she feels okay being rude to him because she's already been so vocally horny around him. If he’s going to make her wait, he can get the full Rey experience: crumbs on her face, exceedingly horny, kind of a bitch sometimes. 

She shoves another chip in her mouth, chewing angrily. “Will you go away if you’re not actually going to fuck me anytime soon?”

He smiles at her, and obliges. 

* * *

Rey likes flirting. Up to a point. Too much of it irritates her. It’s not that she likes to rush things, but she likes getting to the good part. Like last week, at the latke-making party her and Rose had gone to. She’d seen a tall blonde, grabbed the jar of applesauce she’d brought and wandered over. 

“I’m having some trouble opening this,” she’s asked, peeking up innocently at the woman, proffering the jar. “Wow, you’re so strong,” she’d cooed after she’d easily pried it open, touching her lightly on the forearm after and smiling even bigger. Less than ten minutes later they’d been in the blonde’s car. And less than ten minutes after that, Rey had come. 

Why is she doing this weird thing with Ben, then? At this point, with anyone else, they’d be intertwined. Or at the very least, making out in a dark corner. She could abandon the Ben Project for someone else. She looks around. There’s a cute brown-haired girl with glasses talking to Poe, a combination Rey has always been drawn to (“Matilda” had been a formative text for Rey in both the “relatably terrible parents” way and in the, “wow, I have complex feelings about Miss Honey” kind of way.) 

She looks at Ben again, now looking slightly miserable as he talks to someone. She’d been looking forward to this, the excitement of meeting someone new and exploring their body. He’s not doing this the way she expected. But the way he’s drawing this out—the way he’s tending to her desire, throwing more kindling on when she’s already feeling out of control—is irritating, yes. But somehow, it’s appealing. Sort of. Maybe she can wait just a little longer. 

* * *

“I thought you wanted to. You know. Over the table,” Rey says, pouting, after cornering him next to a bookshelf.

“I do,” Ben says kindly. “Don't worry.”

“I’m not worried,” she snaps. “I’m just horny. And you’re annoying.” She’s usually charming when she wants to get laid, deploying a certain laugh, a particular smile, even a head tilt that she’s found to be a strangely effective seduction tool. He doesn’t deserve those, Rey thinks peevishly. 

He nods in seeming agreement. 

“I mean, you could do anything you wanted to me right now,” she says, edging towards him.

“Yeah?” he asks, shifting closer. They’re standing just a little too close, probably. Someone might be able to tell what they were doing. 

She opens her mouth, about to tell him what exactly she’d like him to do to her, when Poe suddenly appears next to them, clapping a hand on both of their shoulders. 

“Are you two having fun at our good friend Hux’s party?” he says innocently. Rey frowns at how hard his thumbs are digging into her shoulders. “It’s so nice of everyone to come celebrate Hux’s very special day. And who do you think did it? Must have been someone who knew Jimmy’s schedule pretty well, huh?”

She sighs, shaking off Poe’s hands, turning and grabbing the first person who walks by, to ask where they were the night of the murder. 

* * *

She talks to people, she hunts for clues, but she keeps looking at Ben. She notices his eyes tracking her, too. She’s still not quite sure why she’s going along with this whole thing they’ve fallen into. Usually she’s efficient. She likes getting laid, hooking up, meeting people and then rejoining her friends. 

But she wants to keep talking to him. She likes his deep voice telling her what he wants to do to her, even if she has increasing doubts that it’ll actually happen. She likes being bossed around, sometimes, and Rey guesses this is another form of it. Denying her wants, dragging out her desire to a heightened, excruciating degree, the whole thing wavering between unsatisfying and almost absurdly arousing. It’s also gratifying, maybe, to surprise him, to say something that makes his eyes widen, his mouth twitch.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Rey drops down next to Ben on the couch, where he’s sitting alone, tapping his foot to some Bollywood disco. “So can we have sex now?’

“No. That would be—”

“Rude. Yeah I figured you say that.” She sighs heavily. “God, you’re annoying.”

He smiles serenely. 

Something occurs to her. “Am I being too rude to you? Do you want me to be nicer?” She moves a little closer, trying to look contrite. She bats her eyelashes, but it’s more of a confused blink.

“No. He says it decisively. “I like that you’re rude.”

“Kinky!”

“Anyway. Want to tell me more things you’re into? I like hearing you.”

She sits back and looks at the other partygoers. Finn is still on his phone, and now Rose and Hux are talking, both making big motions with their hands. “Maybe I don’t feel like telling you any more.”

He looks worried. “Are you uncomfortable? Should we stop—”

“Be quiet. I want to talk about you.” She turns on the cushion toward him, propping her chin on her hand on the cushion and smiling. “Tell me about you. How do you like it, Ben?”

Silence. He doesn’t want to answer. That’s fine. 

“How about me on top so you can grab my boobs? Or from behind? That way you could slap my ass. If you felt like it.” 

His nostrils flare, and she can see him trying to get a hold of himself. 

She throws her head back and laughs, like he’s being hilarious, even though he hasn’t said anything. She leans in, just a little,

“Or what if….you could punish me, if you wanted. If I had done something, maybe you’d like to not let me come? Or you could spank me. Or,” she says excitedly, nodding at him. “You could go down on me, until I just about to come, and then put just the tip in. Like high school! And I’d probably beg you, and maybe I’d even cry a little—”

He stares at her, wide-eyed. Then he makes an annoyed sound, shaking his head, taking off his jacket, draping it too casually over his lap. “Goddamnit.” 

She stares at his arms in his tank top. They’re absurdly large. “Nice arms,” she says admiringly. He must eat a ton of chicken breast. Slurp down chalky protein powder mixtures instead of actually eating. How could you date someone like that?

He frowns at her. 

“I’m being serious. Come on. Part of the reason you must work out is so people compliment you.”

“It’s stress relief,” he says, annoyed. “So I don’t get mad at my coworkers.”

“Really? Are you sure it’s not so girls at parties say—” she makes her voice breathy, smiling at him—“‘Wow, Ben, you’re so strong.’”

“No. It's functional strength,” he mutters. 

“Uh huh. Functional. Your arms are so big I bet you could hold me down even if I kept moving. And I bet you can carry all the groceries in one trip.” 

He considers. “I could definitely do the first part. But I’m not actually that strong. You’d probably still have to carry your own groceries.” 

She smiles, despite herself. Arms like that aren’t usually paired with self-deprecating jokes. She likes it. But ugh, she’s not supposed to be thinking about his personality. She flops back against the cushion. “You're not supposed to be funny. You’re supposed to be stern and mean.”

She can sense him processing. “You want me to be mean while we’re doing this? Like, how mean?”

She doesn’t usually get too deep into her kinks with party hookups. Those are reserved for the people she trusts. People she’s dated, or her regular hookups (the things she’s done with that dumb, incredibly-limber soccer player!) 

But Ben has the friend-of-a-friend safety net. And they’ve covered a lot of ground already, and he hasn’t been weird. Just aggravatingly attractive. He’s actually gotten close, already, with that hint of something that had really worked for her—older-guy presumption coupled with the slightest hint of disdain, maybe?—evident in some of what he’d said to her. And maybe what she’s about to tell him will be the thing that makes his self-control shatter, and then they’ll fuck. And then she’ll get on with her life. 

“I think I’m into name-calling,” she says, settling deeper into the couch. 

It had been the blonde from the latke party who had showed her. They’d been making out in her car, and the girl had two fingers inside Rey as they made out. It had felt good, so good, and Rey had whimpered and attempted to wiggle closer, wanting more.

“You’re kind of a slut, Rey,” she’d said teasingly into Rey’s ear. And then Rey had come immediately, surprising herself. 

Huh, Rey had thought, walking home. I guess I like being called a slut. It was appealing, in its way. Like she was too much, but don’t worry—they’d handle it. Handle her.

Ben seems confused, furrowing his brow. “Uh. Do you have an example?” 

“You know, the things you’re not supposed to say to a girl.”

He thinks for a second. “Like she’s bad at her job?”

She laughs. She’s fucked a lot of unfunny people. 

“No.” The party marches on around them. She makes her voice quiet. “Like I’m a slut. Who needs to be told exactly what to do.” He looks a little scandalized, mouth open just watching her as she talks, speaking quietly so no one can hear. “I think I’d like you calling me those things Ben. If you want.”

He looks genuinely surprised. “Um. I see.”

She rolls her eyes. “All right.” She begins to stand. 

He reaches out a hand, but doesn’t touch her, halting the motion right before he’d brush her wrist. He looks up at her, apologetic and curious, and she sinks down, as if he’d reached a little farther and pulled her back towards him They still haven’t touched. 

He leans back, attempting, she thinks, to look relaxed. He spreads his legs and takes a very long sip of beer. “Okay. Cool.” 

They sit in silence.

“So, just to clarify,” he says anxiously, after a while. “You want me to be mean to you?”

“Yeah. I mean, don’t like, bully me. More like, blah, blah, you’re a whore, it’s embarrassing how much you want this. That kind of thing. And you look hot when you’re frowning.” 

“Huh. Have you been watching me?” 

“I’ve been checking you out. You’re big and you’re hot when you’re mean. And just generally. Like a sexy, terribly-dressed fridge.” 

“And you want me to call you—” He nods again, like he’s steeling himself. “Okay. You’re sure?” He picks at the label on his beer, looking confused and adorable.

“Yeah. I mean, like, you don’t actually think I’m a pathetic slut right?” 

“What? No.” He says it quickly. “I think you seem like—”

She looks at him, curious how this sentence is going to end. 

“—A cool person,” he says lamely.

She laughs again, loudly and he looks embarrassed, his cheeks turning red. 

“I mean, you don’t have to if you’re too uncomfortable. I just think it’d be hot.” 

She sees him trying it out. When he looks at her again, the startled look is gone. That competitive streak, maybe: now he knows something that will give him an advantage. The tentativeness, the nervousness is gone. He looks like he’s appraising her, like she’s something for him to consume and use. Like he’s kind of bored at what she’s offering, but he’ll still take it and get his money’s worth. 

“Okay. I can do that.” He says it a little shortly, too, like he’s annoyed by he. As his eyes disdainfully slide over her, she feels herself clench.

Then he looks away, and when he talks again, it’s normal. “What if you don’t like it? I don’t want to get too mean.” 

“How about...I’ll tell you red if it’s too much, yellow if you’re in the neighborhood.” 

“Okay.” 

“And only during,” she adds hastily, frowning at him. “Like if you said it a minute after—” she shakes her head—“I would, like, cut you.” 

He grins. “Got it. But what if there’s a gap between when you come and I do? Can I say it then?” 

“Well, are you saying you’re into it now? You want to call me it?” 

“I mean, maybe—”

She thinks of something else. “Ben,” she says, charmed. “Are you implying that I’m going to come first?” 

His ears look like they’re turning red. “I’m just trying to get some clarity, if we’re going to do this—”

She smiles. “I appreciate your thoroughness.” 

“Anything else?” 

“I think that’s it. It’s more the idea that...I’m so desperate for it it’s embarrassing, and you, unfortunately, are the one who has to deal with me being so horny.”

“Very unfortunate for me,” he says with a small smile. 

All of a sudden she feels very exposed. She stands up abruptly. “Right. So. Now you know. See you around?” 

She turns around, and he gives her one more of those looks, and she feels a little overwhelmed by the force of it, the severity in his features, the careless, obvious, lazy roll of his eyes over her body. 

* * *

Twenty minutes later, she’s getting another drink. He follows her in, resting against the cabinet. She decides to give it another try. 

“Come on, Ben. Can we have sex now? I get your whole ‘delayed gratification’ thing. Very good. Great job. You’re a sex god.” She scowls. “But seriously. Come on and fuck me already.” 

He just smiles. Then he strolls over to her, backing her against the counter. “Look at you,” he says softly. “Your cheeks are all red. Your nipples are all hard. So obvious.” He smiles mockingly. “But I can’t fuck you right now. I’m not hard yet.” 

“I can—I’ll do whatever you want,” she says meekly.. 

“Of course you would, you needy whore.” Time seems to stop for just a second, her body tensing. She shifts, the warmth starting in her cunt, echoing through her body, distracting her. “Would you use your hands or your mouth?” 

He puts an arm on the counter on each side of her, trapping her as he looks straight at her. 

“Both? Whatever’s fastest? What do you want, Ben?”

He laughs meanly. “Aw, poor Rey. Wants to get fucked right this minute.” 

She’s so turned on she’s almost trembling with it. He just keeps talking, just keeps leaning closer. 

“I’m not hard, but I could finger you right now,” he says thoughtfully. “But I don’t even know if my fingers would fill you the way you need. Bet you’d want more.”

He leans back, sipping his beer as he looks up and down at her body scornfully. 

“Please, Ben,” she says, really begging this time. 

She must sound desperate, because he looks at her closely. But she doesn’t say red. A smile, mean and satisfied creeps across his face. 

And then Hux’s roommate Anna comes in. She’d been looking for him, she tells Ben, giving Rey a polite smile, and proceeds to ask him a series of incredibly dense questions about neural networks and backpropagation as Rey stands there silently. He gets absorbed into it. Genuinely. not like he’s ignoring her as part of their game, but because he has a lot of feelings about this topic, apparently. He’s so focused, he doesn’t even notice when Anna tries to joke with him, his laugh coming just a little too late. 

Rey just stands there, her underwear getting more soaked, thinking of nothing. Eventually she slips away, and as she says her goodbye, he gives her a genuinely concerned look, like he’s making sure she’s okay. She gives him a little nod as Anna turns to get a beer. In the bathroom, she reaches frantically for the tap, her scribbled character notes disappearing as she washes her hands. Before she leaves, she splashes cold water on the back of her heated neck.   
  


* * *

Finn dramatically accuses Rose of the murder, who gasps equally as dramatically, clutching her heart. While Finn starts questioning her, Ben sidles up to Rey. He doesn’t say anything to her for a second.

“So. How was that?”

He’s not being sarcastic. He’s checking in, sounding a little worried. 

“Perfect.” It had been everything she’d wanted. Except for the part where he’s still not inside her. “I’m dripping.” 

“Good,” he says with a smile. 

“You were having an affair with Billy Boy, your husband’s new star!” Finn booms, as Rose tries not to laugh. She nods. Heads swivel toward Ben. 

“Um. Yep,” Ben says, looking uncomfortable at being the center of attention. 

Finn wheels on Rose again. “Did you strangle your husband in cold blood for getting in the way of your new love?”

“No! I was at Moon Juice, drinking a bee pollen smoothie! And then, since I knew Jimmy was in Pilates for an hour, I stopped at Billy’s studio.” 

“You still could have come back to your house and killed him.”

“Um, no, Finn. Look at the map where Billy’s studio is. It’s the same studio as Jimmy’s, and there are witnesses—including another studio musician—” Poe waves at them all — “Who saw me get there at 5:16 p.m. I wouldn’t have been able to get all the way across town in commute traffic back home. I called the police at 6:30 when I got home. Which is one of the clues.” 

Rey tunes them out. “You’re okay with this, still?” 

His eyes are excited. “Yeah. I liked that.” 

“Good. Because, fuck, you’re good at this.” I want to drag you home with me and get naked and have you lounge and order me around and tell me lazily, indulgently just how needy I am, and how you know just what to do for a needy little whore like me. She thinks for a split second about coming home from her classes, after a stressful day of hard work and flying, insecure thoughts, and having nothing to focus on but this. Too bad about her rule

He blinks rapidly at her words, and she wonders at his reaction. Is this affecting him like it is her? Time for another attempt. She turns and gives him a big, fake, friendly smile. 

“What you said made me even more wet,” she murmurs quietly, so quietly that he has to lean in. “You could have pulled my pants down and bent me over the sink. God. You could do anything you want to me right now.” 

His eyes are bright, he’s barely breathing, gripping his beer.

“You’re so inappropriate. I can’t believe you’re saying these things,” he whispers, breath ghosting over her ear. “You seem so polite—” Well no, she thinks, that’s just the accent but please go on— “But in reality you’re just a slut. You know what I want to do to you right now?”

“What?

“Guys! The game is afoot!” Poe says, stepping between them. “Still!”

* * *

Poe introduces another clue: the content’s of Jimmy’s phone, spreading the papers out on the coffee table. Ben’s sitting on the couch, hunched over looking at them, his longish hair falling in his face as he looks at one of the files, a log from the Strava app of a bike ride, the day of Jimmy’s death. 

“Don’t sit like that. You’re taking up the entire couch.” Rey flops down next to him, frowning at his wide-legged stance. It’s excessive. 

“It’s a love seat. It’s small,” he says, sounding annoyed as he shifts a little. He’s still so wide-legged. She starts to cross her legs, but makes the decision to unfold them. Their knees brush. 

“Do you really need to sit like that? Is your dick really that big?” 

“I don’t really think I should be the one to answer that. I don’t really have an objective frame of reference about the whole thing.” 

She snorts. Again with the weird half-jokes. She wonders why he feels fine joking with her, when he seems, at least from tonight’s observations, to generally hate talking to people. But she doesn’t think about it too much, because then she’d think about how she likes his deadpanness, instead of why she’s wasting one of her last nights of freedom talking to this guy. 

* * *

“Seriously. I set this whole thing up,” Poe hisses, eyes darting to look at Hux. “I know your characters don’t need to talk this much. What did I tell you? Circulate, Rey.” 

* * *

“What else would I have to say to get you to fuck me?” she whines. Shame is a foreign concept to her at this point. 

They’re standing in front of the fridge. 

“Aren’t you embarrassed about how desperate you sound? Here? Now?” He gives her a friendly, impersonal smile.

“I don’t care. I want it. I want you, Ben.” 

His lips start twitching upward, his eyes warm. He liked that. But then, he switches back. “Greedy slut,” he says, sounding almost impressed, taking a long sip of his sparkling water.

Her blazer is slung over some dining room chair. She stretches her arms out expansively, aware of how her nipples are visibly pebbled in her tank top, trying to look unaffected.

He leans against the fridge, bumping into a magnet holding up a picture of Hux and Poe on the top of some mountain. He moves it and turns back to her, still looking polite. “So are you like this with anyone? You just need to be fucked ? You’d bend over for anyone?” 

She stares at him. “Not anyone.” 

He smiles. “Aww, you like me? You’re just trying to sweet talk me so I give you what you need, huh? And what is it you need, exactly?”

“I said this already. You want to hear it again, Ben? I want you,” she grits out, irritated. Then she steps closer. “But actually, I don’t know anymore. I thought I did. I thought I wanted your big hands and your big body and your voice, and even that stupid chain. But at this point, I don’t know if I believe you.”

She takes another tiny step forward, so she sees how the too-bright kitchen lights reflect off his pale face. “You’re letting me down, Ben. Maybe I should just go home, pull out my vibrator. Do you want to know what I’d do then?”

He gulps from his can of sparkling water, nodding jerkily.

“You want to know where I’d put my hands, what I’d think about?” Another small step. There’s a mole on his jaw she hadn’t previously noticed. “You want to know how loud I am? How, if there are other people home, sometimes, I have to play music before I touch myself, because I know I can get really loud?” 

The La Croix logo warps and compresses as it’s squeezed in his hand. His eyes are lidded, and he opens his mouth to say something, then shuts it again. He sets his mouth in a line, like he’s trying to stay quiet so she’ll keep talking. 

She pulls back. “Think about it, Ben,” she says, giving him an innocent smile before turning and flouncing out of the kitchen.

* * *

Rey sees Hux hunting around with a magnifying glass, Poe’s eyes roving around frantically, making sure everyone’s having a good time. She barely registers any of it, too distracted by Ben, even though he’s across the room. 

He looks at her across the room and just shakes his head like he’s embarrassed, like he knows some secret about her. His eyes stay on her, and she straightens her posture and grins at people, feeling like she’s preening for him. Poe turns the volume up on a glimmering, slightly spooky song, a falsetto voice singing slowly over synths: I need somebody to love tonight. She looks at Ben again. If they don’t end up doing this, she’s not sure if she could swap him out for someone else quite as easily as she initially thought. 

* * *

  
  


Rey is leaving the kitchen with another La Croix—she’s basically stopped drinking, his presence, his smell, his words, addling her enough—when Ben breezes past her. But not before bending to whisper her ear, a generic smile on his face, to ask her if she knows her cheeks are pink whenever she looks at him, if that’s what she’d look like while he was inside of her, if she keeps her eyes open when she comes, that he’s surprised a slut like her blushes the way she does, but he likes it. “It’s cute,” he says approvingly. 

She looks at him, dumbfounded. Then she glares at him and turns, following him back into the kitchen. 

He turns to look at her from where he’s leaning against the sink. There’s no one else there. She doesn’t care if she’s ruining his alone time. “Hey, Rey,” he says in a friendly tone. “Just checking—did you like that?”

“Why are you doing this?” she snaps. She’s so wet, her cunt clenching with every word he’s saying. It feels like she’s constantly running up a flight of stairs, only to find a locked door. 

“My mom always said to get active, regular consent.” 

She rolls her eyes. “I’ve been telling you how wet I am for basically the entire time we’ve been here.” 

“Still,” he says smugly. “Never hurts to check.”

“You’re right. And I really wish you would check. Like, put your giant hand down my pants and see how wet I am for you.”

He looks at her, and says very quietly, “Rey. You’re—you need to learn how to fucking behave. You've got such a dirty mouth.” 

“Want to fill it? I could suck—”

He gives her an incensed look, eyebrows coming together, mouth settling into a firm line.

“You’re such a slut you’d get down on your knees for me at this party? You’d just take wherever I felt like giving you, huh?”

She continues breezily like she hasn’t heard him. “Or, if you really wanted to shut me up, you could. You know. Jam a few of those bad boys into my mouth.” She nods at his hand. 

There are definitely sexier ways she could have phrased that, she recognizes, but she’d had an impulse, again, to make him laugh. Which he’s doing now. And the horny-spell is broken, but maybe it’s fine to take a quick break. She’ll get them on track again. Soon. 

“Are you going to fuck me later at least? Can we at least get, like a handshake agreement about this whole thing?” 

He gives her an easy smile. “Sure. Sounds good.”

“‘Sounds good’?” she hisses angrily. “If we ever end up actually having sex I’m going to come immediately and then climb off your dick and leave.” 

“Sounds good,” he says mildly. “And isn't it kind of fun? Talking?” 

Rey glares at him, thinking of how many orgasms she could have had by now. (She ignores the fact that she was the one to derail them most recently.) 

“I think you’re having a little fun. You know, they say the largest sex organ is actually—” 

“Don’t you dare say the brain—”

“No, it’s actually my dick.”

He looks pleased when she brays with surprised laughter. He says his jokes straight faced, she’s noticed. Like he’s not ready to claim it as a joke unless she laughs. 

“But the second largest is the brain.” She groans loudly, and he opens the fridge. “Do you want another drink? You should really try that beer I initially recommended you.” 

* * *

  
  


Thirty minutes later, he finds her while she’s standing alone next to the speaker. A yearning Diana Ross is singing wistfully about having a love hangover.

“I am very good at sex. All of my infrastructure”—she waves a hand from her boobs to her cunt —“It’s all great.” 

He guffaws at that, eyes shining. “I bet.” She thinks he’s going to take another lazy gaze over her body, but instead he keeps making eye contact, eyes sincere. “Sleeping with you would be the greatest honor in my 29 years.” 

A frustrated noise leaves her. But she gives him a big, fake smile, even though she kind of wants to murder him. She’s never delayed pleasure this much in her life. She hates it.

She decides to go on the offensive. “Why do you keep talking to me? Do you want me to stop? 

“No. Do you want me to stop?”

“No.” Unfortunately. Why is she compelled by him? “But why do you keep talking about it instead of doing it? Doing me, that is,” she clarifies. 

“I don't know. It’s fun?” He sounds a little confused himself. The song crashes into it’s faster, uptempo second half, and Rey wants to climb his body and rub herself against him in time to the rhythm. This is all so stupid, she thinks. 

“Are you secretly really bad at sex?” She’s trying to goad him into some big-dick-bluster, something that will get to get him to hiss in ear about how he’d like to hear her try to say that while he’s fucking her, while she’s bent over and full of him.

But instead he just looks at her for a while, and then says, “Yeah. I’m terrible,” completely deadpan, no expression. 

She looks away, so he doesn’t see her smile, but she thinks he catches it. 

“Also, did you change your hair?” he asks mildly. 

She’d been so bored, her theory about the killer already firmly solidified, that she’d started playing with her hair while talking to Rose. She has a lazy braid handing over her left shoulder. She touches the end of it. “Yeah?”

“Hmm.” He takes a sip. 

“What, do you not like it?” 

“No.” He cocks his head a little. “I just like your hair up. You’ve got a good neck.”

Someone says his name and he nods at her. “See you?”

Distracted, she nods back without saying anything. 

* * *

The way Ben’s dragging it out, though—-it means that she notices other things about him, more so than if they’d hooked up already. He looms so large in her mind that it’s surprising to see him awkward and hunched, slightly agonized as he small talk with the rest of the party. She thinks he might be shy.. She also sees that he’s sitting less wide-legged with some other woman on the couch (how polite), how he and Hux alternate between frowning at each other and laughing genuinely at something the other is saying, and how he keeps looking toward the kitchen longingly (maybe to see if it’s empty again?) All things that don’t really matter, since this is just a one-off hookup, to slot into the neat parameters of the Rey Rules. But still. She notices. 

* * *

Eventually, Rey looks for Finn. He’s talking to Ben. She stands next to Finn, who nods at her and takes a sip of her beer in greeting, but keeps talking to Ben about—she listens for a moment, and then frowns—set theory. They talk. Finn, as charming and jokey as usual, Ben polite and a little, adorably intense when he finds out that Finn is also thinking about leaving math for programming. 

After an absolutely thrilling discussion of counting problems, Finn leaves them to get another drink. Her and Ben drift a few steps away, ending up in front of the bookshelf again.

“Are you also contemplating leaving math for programming?” he asks. 

She looks at the shelves. Hux’s, probably: a doorstop of a machine learning textbook, a battered, childhood copy of Peter Rabbit. Two DVDs: “Requiem For a Dream” and “Mean Girls.” She frowns. “No. I’m deciding if I want to go to grad school. I think I want to do research, but i want to get some experience. But it's my last semester, and I wasn’t able to do any because I was always so busy with work…” She trails off, trying to revert back to her point. Her goal. She has a goal for this night. “But—”

“Well, whatever you do, don’t get a PhD. You’ll be miserable.” 

“Are you miserable?”

“Yeah. Look at me.” 

“You look pretty miserable,” she says, enjoying his small but genuine smile right now, the parentheses lines framing his mouth. “Anyway. I was thinking of how much I like your nose. It seems like it’d be very helpful during—”

It takes him a second to get the implication. “Wow,” he says, politely, like he can’t believe her behavior. He shakes his head in disbelief, letting out a little laugh. “Are you ever not thinking about it?”

“You’re distracting me. So would you go down on me? Or are you one of those guys who would just have me fuck him?” 

He ignores her obvious goad. (As if this guy doesn’t eat pussy. He’s older, and has that mouth. If not, she’d be willing to bravely soldier the burden of turning him into a cunnilingus expert if she had to.) He shakes his head, frowning at her. “Can’t take you anywhere. God, I bet you’re so fucking demanding in bed.” 

“Yeah,” she says, intentionally guileless. “Even if you were tired, if we had already had sex. Would you still help me come if I needed to again?” She gives him an innocent look. “Would you let me rub myself all over you? Use your hand to get off again? You wouldn't have to do anything. I’d do all the work. You could just ignore me.” 

“I wouldn’t ignore you, Rey,” is all he says, eyes flitting down her body. Heat flares in her stomach, then zaps through the rest of her body. 

He turns to examine the bookshelf, making a surprised noise as he plucks something off the top shelf. “Hey. This is mine,” he mutters, showing her the cover—“Lightweight Django,” two fluttering birds inexplicably on the cover—and flipping through it. Rey sighs heavily, wondering why she’s so attracted to a guy who’d rather spend a party reading programming manuals instead of talking to people.

* * *

“I saw you talking to Ben,” Rose says, scrolling through her phone as they lean against the wall in the living room. 

“Yeah,” Rey says casually, glad Rose isn’t looking at her face. Over the speaker, a woman’s low voice is repeating, over and over, I want to kiss you baby. She watches as Hux walks by Poe, kissing the top of his head. Poe turns and smiles at him, squeezing his hip before turning back to his conversation with Finn. 

“He’s sort of hot,” Rose continues. “But he was so incredibly awkward when I tried to talk with him.” 

Rey thinks of the weird, crass ease she and Ben have somehow settled into, and makes a noncommittal noise. She’s glad when Rose changes the subject, showing her a picture of the wild-looking party her sister’s currently at. 

* * *

Rey is sulking on the couch when Ben comes to sit next to her again. As soon as he does, taking up his usual exorbitant amount of room, she wheels on him, telling him in a angry tone just how wet her underwear are, and she’s not sure she’s ever been this wet before, and he’s being annoying, but also she’s sorry for being rude, but she’s so horny that she’s getting grumpy, and she really wishes he would just—

“Poor little Rey,” he says mockingly. “Such a complainer. What would make you feel better? What if I went down on you? What if we went into some corner, and I licked your needy little cunt?” 

She nods. Keeps nodding. Want curls through her. Why, that sounds fine to her. 

His lips twist. “No, that wouldn’t work. You’d probably be so loud everyone would know.” He puts an arm around the couch, smirking at her like she’s young and embarrassing, like he has to think of everything. 

That mouth, those lips sucking and pulling on her clit as she squirms, his hair fisted in her hands—

He shifts, stacking his leg on top of his knee, drumming his hand on his extended knee. He pauses. “Also. If you want, I can give you some advice about getting into research. Only If you want.”

“Um.” She’s dazed and slow from his words, struck dumb from want. 

“I can also go? You seem a little distracted.” 

Well, his offer of help sounded earnest, if strangely hesitant. She glares at the wall. And then she crosses her leg angrily, so her foot is next to his giant one, stacked on his knee. She presses against his giant Nike, and he lets her push it. 

“Fine. Tell me.” 

* * *

In three days, she’ll be just another mechanical engineering undergrad. Just another barista. Just another library reshelver. But right now, she’s the center of attention. And his attention—it’s all consuming. She thinks about how her brain spirals out during the school year with worries. Right now she couldn’t think of anything but Ben, how her body feels, even if she tried.

* * *

She does try, though. Because he’s being so infuriating, she tries to forget about him, to not let herself look for him, or think about what he’d feel like. It works for a while. Her arousal dips as she makes small talk with people and eats more Bagel Bites. She talks to Finn about his character—they do fake accents—and then walks to the kitchen to grab some water. She smiles at the two people, labmates of Hux’s, talking next to the fridge. Maybe she’ll talk to them, next, she thinks, unscrewing her water bottle. Who needs Ben.

As she turns on the tap, she feels someone behind her. 

“Are you wet right now?” Ben asks in her ear. 

He’s asked her this so many times tonight. And yet, her body snaps to attention. She looks up at the window above the sink, noticing his reflection, how large he is compared to her. He’s tilted away from her, his body facing the other way his head turned to speak in her ear. She turns the faucet off. 

She nods without turning. She feels him move, brushing against her, looks up and sees him tilting a little closer. Maybe he’ll touch her, finally. He speaks quietly so the other people don’t hear. 

“God, you’re already wet, even though we haven’t done anything? I mean, I should have known. You’re really such a—oh, hey, man. What’s up?” She feels him turn away, looks up, sees him greeting someone in the reflection. 

She doesn’t turn all the way around, just looks off the side, where she can see his hand, resting on the counter. She looks at the size of it, the width and thickness of his fingers. Whoever he was talking to must have moved away, because he turns back towards her. The other people in the room are still talking, chatting about some cafe closing. 

“I still can’t really believe it, though. All those things you’ve been saying to me. You just walk around like this?” he says, sounding disbelieving. “Begging for it for it like that—I barely know you and you’ve been begging me to fuck you all night.” 

She’s still facing the sink, not looking at him, barely breathing. It’s all back. All the want, all the arousal, all her warring attraction and frustration. 

“That’s—you—” He sounds horrified. She sees him shake his head in the reflection. Rey notices herself edging closer to him, ever so slightly, breathing so hard. “God, you’re such a fucking slut.” 

She exhales, curling her fingers over the side of the sink for support, because she feels like she might collapse right now, because this. This is exactly what she wants. Even if they don’t have sex, she thinks wildly, even if he just keeps talking, keeps her like this, here, for as long as he wants, she’d take it. 

The other people in the kitchen leave. She hears Ben say something to them while she breathes, but she can barely focus, she’s so turned on.

She twists around, so they’re standing next to each other at the counter. His face is hard to read. She picks up his left hand with her right..

“Your hand is so big.” She holds it up, examining it. He hasn’t said anything. He’s looking at her hand, so small compared to his. It’s the first time they’ve touched. She wonders if he realizes the significance. 

She traces down one of his fingers, over the veins in his hand. “Your fingers are big, too.” She flattens her palm against his, so they can both see how small her fingers look compared to his. 

“They’re big, but I bet I could take—one, two— Three.” She taps lightly on each one as she counts. “Three. That’s how wet I am.” 

He’s silent. But she notices a quick inhale, a few more blinks than usual. Signs that she recognizes now. 

“Please, Ben,'' she murmurs, looking up at him “I'm so wet. It'd be so good. I want you.”

She sees his eyelashes flutter against his face, sees his throat move. Then she feels his fingers move, curling to entwine with hers. . 

“Rey. Do you want to—” It sounds somewhat strangled, almost like he can’t spit it out, and he won’t look at her, just keeps staring at their intertwined hands. 

Finally. She can’t even be truly petty in her victory, because she’s also overwhelmed, her entire awareness zeroed in on their touch. 

She squeezes his hand. “Yes.” 

He moves abruptly, still holding onto her, and pulls her out of the kitchen. She looks around the living room as he tows her across it, the abrupt, jerky motions a surprise after his endless restraint. No one looks at them. When they reach a closed door, he yanks her in behind him. The room is dark and she can’t really discern anything but he maneuvers her to the door and then shoves her body against it. Her head bonks against the wood.

“Wait, are you okay?” he asks worriedly, bending to look at her. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she says, trying to make contact with his hips. “I’m good.”

“Good.” He grabs her wrists, holding her still as he slowly rolls his erection against her. She whimpers.

“Shh,” he says brusquely, stopping his motions. For a second, he just holds her there, pressing his body against hers from top to bottom, covering her, letting her feel the weight and strength of him. He bends over her and she tenses—waiting, needing—but it’s innocent, just a deep inhale against her neck. She sees a flash of something wild in his face as he bends over her neck again. “Smell so good.” 

Pulling back, he begins kissing his way across her chest, impatiently shoving the tiny satin strap of her tank top off one shoulder, then the other. She can’t stop moving her hips, pleasure flooding her at double speed since he’s finally touching her after so long. Small high pitched noises leave her. His hand cradles the back of her neck, holding her in place as his mouth descends once more to bite at the bottom of her neck, and she tilts her head back, panting.

“How come you made me wait so long,” she whines. “Fuck, I want you, want to feel you—”

He keeps pressing her against the door, not moving, just keeping her still. And even though he’s being careful to not give her what she wants—the steady pressure of that massive-seeming erection—every once in a while she manages to graze it. And even just that tiny movement makes her yelp. After the third time, he pulls back abruptly. She whines, and even in the darkness and shadow, she can see his frown. 

“Listen to me, you slut,” he hisses, and at that, she squirms even more against him. Behind her, the party is still in full swing. She hears the footsteps of someone clattering down the hallway to the bathroom. 

“I’m going to—allow you to come on my hand. And then you’re going to bend over for me, and I’m going to fuck you however I want to, okay?” 

Well that’s polite, Rey thinks. Most of the guys she’s hooked up with, even the ones who aren't being the kind of mean she occasionally requests, don’t even bother trying to make her come. He’d hinted, but she didn’t want to assume, get her hopes up. 

He looks at her, and she knows she’s already gasping, her face, her cunt, everything so warm, everything needing his touch. “God. It’s pathetic how much you want it.” 

A brief is-this-okay-pause. But yes, she still likes this. For so long, worry had dominated everything in her life. There hadn’t been any room for arousal. She likes the idea that she’s overflowing with it now, that she needs someone to take care of her. 

Oh please. Please Ben. Fuck. Her noises don’t stop, Rey only barely aware she’s making them, and his arms have shifted, from her arms to the wall, so she’s still caged under him, stuck between him and the door. But now she can arrange her limbs in the tiny space to throw her arms around his neck and strain upward to try and kiss him. But he twists away, walking to the bed, leaving her there against the door. 

“Come over here and take off your clothes.” 

She shakes her head as she walks over. “If someone comes in, I’d much rather get caught without my shirt than without my pants.” Her voice is raspier, she notices. “But I’ll take my shirt off.” 

“Got it.” She’s standing at the edge of the bed and moves to sit. “No, stay there. ”

He takes off his jacket and leans back on his elbows. He nods. “Take off your shirt. Let me see.” 

She takes the shirt off as slowly as she can, which is probably still too fast, but she sees his big foot start tapping erratically next to her when it’s off, and she smiles at his expression. She lifts her hand to pinch a nipple. “Please?” 

“Fuck.” He sits up quickly. Big hands come up to her hips and she moans again as he pulls her down. He kisses her, lips soft. She sinks down wanting more of him, surrounding her, grinding against, trying to accept more of him—his fingers, his cock, his hair in her hands. She settles for his tongue in her mouth as she starts wiggling on him, seeking the length of him firm under her.

“You can’t,” he says, sounding slightly strangled. “Rey, if you keep moving, I can’t do anything—”

He moves to resettle them to his liking, keeping a firm grip on her lower back, long fingers reaching down to press into her ass, so she doesn’t squirm. His other hand comes up, squeezing her nipple. She squeaks. 

“God shut up, you slut,” he says, bending down to hiss in her ear. “Fucking relax. You’re getting what you want.” 

Rey closes her mouth, trying not to let out the noises that reveal just how much she likes this, how much she enjoys the angry hiss in his voice, the electric whiff of condescension. 

He pulls back. “I mean, don’t actually,” he whispers. “It’s hot.” So the next time he thrusts his hips up, she moans loudly against his shoulder, letting her teeth graze his skin, stomach hot with anticipation as his hand finds her waistband. 

“Is it okay to unbutton these?” 

“Yeah. I just want them on. Just in case.” 

He works his hand under the waistband, rubbing one of his fingers around her cunt. And even though Rey is expecting it, his touch there, after so much anticipation, so much buildup, just the slightest brush of one of those large fingers against her, while she’s biting at his mouth, has her clench and pushing impatiently forward, trying to shove her cunt into his hand. 

“Ben, fuck, ah—” she says, clawing at his hair as he slowly pushes one blunt finger inside of her, the stretch perfect. A satisfied grunt leaves those full lips once he discovers how wet she is—which really shouldn’t be a surprise at this point, but whatever—and Rey wants to devour that too, so she slams her lips against him again.

And although he can do amazing things in the limited space the elastic of her waistband allows—he curls the finger, which makes her choke out some ungodly noise into the space where his jaw meets his ear, which in turn, causes him to shudder and shove into her again—she needs more. 

“Hold on,” she gasps. He freezes, watching as she rises up on her knees and shoves her pants and underwear, so they pool around her ankles.

“Are you sure you don’t want to just take them off?” he asks as she settles impatiently back onto his lap. 

She kisses the edge of his smile. “Nope. This is fine.” 

“You’re so stubborn,” he mutters, smiling. 

“So are you. We could have been doing this two hours ago.” 

He returns his hand to her cunt. Now, he has more room, and his fingers stroke around her lips, a too-leisurely exploration before pressing in a finger. Then another. His thumb finds her clit, painting it with her wetness, the increased pressure and fullness making her squeeze around him. 

He feels it, must realize just how close she is. “You said you’d take three. But I think it’ll only take two,” he whispers, pulling them out and shoving them back up. 

They’re so wide and they feel so good, and she keeps telling him—Jesus Ben, so good, fuck— as she messes up his hair, plunging her hands into it, gripping the strands as she lets him fuck her with his fingers. 

He stops his movement. She blinks, eyes wide, horrified. “You’re so turned on, that I bet I wouldn’t have to move anymore if I didn’t want to,” he says quietly. “Just let you squirm around on my hand until you came. Like you said.” 

She pants. She thinks she hears Hux’s voice saying something, far, far away. 

“Aw, you look so sad, Rey,” he says mockingly. He scrunches his lips to one side, like he’s thinking. He nods, and then shoves up his fingers again while pressing his thumb on her clit. She sees his facing watching her for her reaction, but then she can’t anymore, because she’s descending on him in gratitude, kissing and shifting against his hand in wild motions that he attempts to manage, maybe, with a big hand on her back, but he quickly gives that up for squeezing her ass slowly, almost like it’s a luxury he’s taking his time with. 

“Hey. Ow,” he says at one point, sounding amused as she claws at hair. 

“Sorry,” she mumbles, mouth slack against his cheek, panting in his ear, his warmth soothing. 

“I can tell how much you need it. This is what you wanted since you walked in, huh? Don’t worry. I’ve got you.” 

He bends, putting his mouth on her breasts and Rey is so, so close, trying not to moan too loud even though she wants to scream about how good his lips feel, pulling on a nipple.

“Your cunt feels good. So warm and wet for me. And it feels like you’re close, maybe?”—a brief flash of inquisitive scholar Ben from earlier, talking in detail about asking professors for research opportunities, but then—“God, I don’t even have to go down on you? Don’t even have to fuck you. You’re going to come just from this?”

He pauses to lick one of her nipples, but moves his mouth to keep talking. She growls. “We could go back out there and do this in some corner if you started complaining again. Watch you try to keep quiet with my fingers in you.” 

“Please—please—” She grabs the back of his head to pull him toward her chest. “I need—“

“You need? I don’t care what you need,” he says incredulously, bending down to wrap his mouth around her breast for another long suck, which is exactly what she wants. “You’re going to take what I give you and I think it’ll be enough. Because I know what to do for someone like you—” 

He lifts his head, his lips wet. “And when I say someone like you,” he says, voice a harsh growl, wrapping his hand around the back of her neck, “—I mean a needy little slut who's getting my jeans all wet in a party with all her friends nearby. Who can’t be patient and wait for a few hours, because she needs it so much.” 

She comes with a cry, her brain shorting out for a second as she sways against him. Her whole body feels stunned, all thoughts vanishing as the pleasure overtakes her. Her fingers, she hazily realizes, are curled around his chain. She releases it, mindlessly kissing the spot on his shoulder where it lays. He’s so warm and she’s grateful for his width as she leans against him, blinking and almost dizzy, his smell surrounding her. 

After a few quavering breaths, she pulls back. They smile at each other, taking in their respective work: his hair falling in chaotic directions, her shaky breaths that are growing longer, her naked chest. His erection, pressing against her insistently. 

“Jesus.” She arches her eyebrows at him. “Fuck.” 

He removes his fingers from her gently, patting her clit. Her legs twitch. She stays collapsed against him. 

“Shit. I might actually be getting your jeans wet right now.”

“Um. It’s fine.”

She climbs off him, tugging up her underwear and pants, and lies down next to him on the bed, still overwhelmed. 

“You’re really good at that. This a usual thing for you?” 

“Ah. No. I’m glad you liked it.” He turns, so his body faces hers. 

“You’re getting your PhD, right? Is it in, like, perfect hot dirty talk?” 

“Yeah. It’s part of the program. You learn it after Go.” 

She laughs, a loud thing in the quiet room, and he smiles. 

“Sorry.” His face changes, settling into a serious frown. “I know you want me mean.” 

She sits up and kisses him, aiming for the dimples she’d seen. “No. I like the smile, too. I’m allowing it. You can be smiley when we bang.” 

He looks at his hand, shaking his head. “I didn’t realize I’d be so into that.” 

She reaches over to squeeze him. He’s so hard, and his body jolts “Well, suit up and show me just how into it you are.” 

Suddenly he moves, bending over her body to kiss her, palming a breast slowly. He grinds his erection into her, and she remembers that he’s probably on edge, desperate like she was. “Yeah?” he whispers. “And do you still need more?”

She nods, faint arousal starting to build in her belly again. 

He brings his fingers to her mouth, pressing two against the seam of her lips. She sucks on them as she presses her cunt against his erection, watching as his eyes flutter shut.

“What does that taste like, Rey?” 

She waits for him to remove his fingers, but he keeps them in her mouth, looking expectant. So she says it around his fingers, watching how the sound of her talking with her mouth full makes him press her deeper into the mattress. (And maybe it gets her a little more wet, too.)

“Like I need you, like I need to—” 

“See, you can almost say it,” he says meanly. He pulls his fingers out of her mouth. “Someone like you should be able to ask for what they need.” 

She wants his thick cock slowly pressing her open, the knowledge of how he’ll look when he loses control, all of it, right now. 

His eyes are dark and eager, darting around her face. "Tell me what you want, you whore.”

“Oh, now you’re into this too?” she teases. 

He bends deeper, his face in front of hers. “Maybe,” he says quietly, their noses almost touching. “And maybe I want to feel you come again.”

Charmed, she flings her arms around his back and drags him the last few inches. “Please, Ben.” She pulls at his clothes, at his hair—annoying—but he’s trying to take her pants off—annoying. “Want you to fuck me.”

He mouths over her breasts again, she moans, snaking a hand down to rub over his erection. 

“Yeah, you slu—oh fuck, Rey,” he groans when she squeezes.

“Please.” She rubs herself against him, and he’s so hard and she wants to feel him, wants to be spread open around him, wants him to use her like she did him. “You felt so good, want to feel all of you. Fuck, you’re so good”—he ruts against her palm—“at making me come. Wanna make you come” 

“I don’t know,” he manages, but his tone is slightly different. One of his hands moves from her chest to grope for his wallet. 

He takes out the condom, pulling back and squinting. And then she’s missing the warmth and weight of his body, and there are groans that aren’t hers and he’s swearing and showing her the condom’s expiration date, six months past.

“Fuck,” he says, rolling over to lay next to her. “Do you—”

She’d taken her nice purse to the party, her usual, well-stocked, “Eat The Rich” tote not feeling like a good fit with her business bitch outfit. “No. Sorry.” 

He sits up. “I can ask Hux.” 

Rey sits up too, but when she does, she feels something. Something new, and sharp against her ankle, accompanied by an angry meow. She startles, pulling her legs up on the bed. “There was a a fucking cat here the whole time?” 

Ben puts out a hand, and the cat immediately walks to him. “Hey Millie.” He looks at her. “Are you okay? Did she bite you?” 

Rey frowns at the cat, who’s purring loudly as it rubs itself against Ben’s hand. Hussy. “I’m fine. I’ll probably follow you out instead of waiting here, though.” 

She puts her shirt back on, and they leave the room. In the bathroom, she tries to straighten her clothes and hair, noticing a red mark blossoming on her neck. Outside, she can’t find him immediately. She retrieves her blazer from the couch and then the pauses outside of the kitchen, where she can see Ben, facing in her direction, talking to Hux and Poe, their backs to her. 

“What the fuck, man! I am not giving you a a condom so you can fucking get your dick wet at my birthday party.” Hux’s voice is loud and she sees Ben cringe. She bites her cheek. “Jesus Christ, you asshole.”

Poe cuts in, rubbing a hand protectively over Hux’s back. “Yeah, man. Seriously not cool.”

They leave the kitchen. “And fix your hair,” Hux calls behind him. Rey quickly turns so he can’t see her. “You look like shit.” 

Poe notices her. “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed,” he tells her gravely as he passes, shaking his head. 

She looks at Ben, still standing in the middle of the kitchen. He shrugs. She shrugs back. 

She’s about to suggest going back to the room so he can tell her to be a good little slut and open her mouth a little wider for him to thrust into—or maybe he doesn’t have to come in her mouth. I mean, my face is right there, she thinks, looking at the roll of paper towels next to her on the counter—

“We should probably. Solve the crime. Or attempt it,” he says, walking over to her. 

She spares a brief look at his jeans, the ones she’d come on. He sees the direction of her gaze and sighs, but doesn’t suggest an alternative. 

“Yeah. You’re probably right,” she says, still staring. There’s a tiny spot, but nothing obvious on the denim. It’s over so soon, she thinks. Which is weird, because she doesn’t usually want these things to last longer. “See you around?” 

* * *

They play the game. She talks to Mitaka some more. Ben looks at her while she whispers her theory in Rose’s ear. She watches as Hux shoves a map in his face, and how they laugh at something, and wonders to know what they're laughing about. She finds out Hux's roommate Anna was also a mechanical engineering undergrad, and quizzes her about the mechatronics class she’s taking this semester: how was the workload? Did it take over her life like that awful multivariable calculus class had?

She’s looking at her work schedule at the cafe for the next few weeks on her phone when she hears a loud, “J’accuse!” She puts her phone away and clusters with the rest of the guests in front of Hux, who's pointing dramatically at Mitaka. 

“It was you!” he yells, body pointed in a straight line. Ben is standing next to him, and she sees him wince a little, trying to avoid Hux’s spit.

“Yep,” Mitaka says cheerily, beaming out at the crowd. “It was me!”

Hux drops his hand. “Shut up, dude. I have to explain how I know.”

“Oh. Sorry. No. Wasn’t me!”

Hux puts his hands behind his back and strolls in front of the group. “Does anyone else have a theory? Or shall I—”

“Karaoke,” Rey interrupts, trying to prove that she wasn't just getting fingered by his best friend all night. 

Hux stops, frowns at her in confusion. “What?” 

“Uh, we talked and he said he does karaoke every Friday. I asked what he sings—” again, Rey had forgotten they were playing a game, and had just thought they were making conversation, but decides not to mention it— “And he said he has the perfect karaoke song, because he was in The Downtown Dudes. And then I read the obituary, and it said that the Downtown Dudes were one of Jimmy’s few missteps, and some people think he mismanaged them. So that was the motive, but the way I figured it out—” 

Rey sees Poe making a slashing motion in front of his throat and closes her mouth. “Actually, there were a few details I couldn’t figure out—”

“All right, all right,” Hux says hastily. “Do you guys want to know how I figured it out?” 

She sees Ben smile at her as Hux details about how only the killer would know that Jimmy wasn’t at Pilates, because once arriving at the gym—which Miatka was a member of— he’d actually switched it to a spin class at the last minute. After, Poe gives a toast to Hux. Rey doesn’t think of herself as a romantic, but she thinks of Finn’s stories about how stressed Poe has been lately about the paper he’s submitting, and how Hux dropped off sandwiches and a thermos of coffee for him every day the last week, and she claps loudly. The music is turned up, and some guests grab their coats. Ben walks over to her. 

“Good job. I actually thought it was Hux.”

“Nah,” she says. “I don’t think Poe would have done that. Hux was too into the game.” 

He nods. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll take this stupid chain off now.” 

“It would reduce the likelihood of strange girls hitting on you.” 

They both sip their beers. 

“Sorry that you didn’t get to, you know,” she says, nodding at dick as she takes a sip of beer. 

He rubs a hand on his neck. “It’s okay. I might not even been able to on Hux’s bed. With that fucking cat around.”

She laughs. “Yeah. I get why they locked it in for the night.” 

Another pause. 

“So, do you live around—” he starts to say, but then there’s a hand clamping down on Rey’s elbow and she’s being tugged away. 

“Sorry, I have to steal Rey for a second,” Rose says, giving a confused Ben a sunny smile as she propels Rey away from him.

Confused, Rey turns back, but he’s already walking toward Hux. 

When they get to the kitchen Finn is already there. They huddle. 

“We need to go. Now,” Rose hisses, eyes serious. “Did you see what’s happening?

Rey peers around the doorframe to the living room, where she sees Ben reaching for a box. She sees Poe’s grimace at the sight of the board game, but it rearranges into a weak grin when Hux turns around to look at him excitedly.

“Oh shi—” she breathes, seeing the gravity of the situation. 

“Yeah,” Rose says, digging for something in her purse. “We have to get out of here before the board games. I am not getting stuck playing Settlers of Catan again.” 

Finn is on his phone. “Why does every grad student love that game,” he mutters, shaking his head, scrolling through Instagram. “Hey, did you see Kay—”

“Yeah, I saw. But that bar sucks. Remember?” Finn pauses, then grimaces, nodding slowly. 

Rose pulls out a hand mirror and hands it to Rey. “Can you hold that?”

Rey snaps it open, holding it in front of Rose’s face as she takes out some lip and cheek product. 

“Anyway, I have a better plan,” Rose says quickly, dotting it over her cheeks and blending. “My sister is at a party. They have a DJ. And a margarita machine.” 

“I’m down,” Finn says, staring down at his phone. “Can I invite Jannah?”

“Sure. Paige said whoever.” Rose rubs some of the product on her lips, smacks them together, then tosses the pink compact back into her purse, reaching for the mirror. “Rey, does that work?” 

Rey hesitates, then nods. She only wants to stay if she can sit on Ben’s lap, impaled by him, their laps covered by a blanket as he fucks up into her occasionally when no one is looking, with him casually whispering in her ear to stop making noises, I’m trying to focus, you slut. Stay still. And then a little later, maybe an irritable hiss in her ear: do you so you want people to see what a whore you are? Keep moving and I’ll raise this blanket and show everyone just how much you’re desperate for it. 

Otherwise—no. She’d rather drink and dance with Paige and her friends. 

“Yeah,” Rey says, handing Rose the mirror. “Let’s go. Can we stop at the Korean fried chicken place on the way? I’m hungry.” 

* * *

It’s a smaller group right now, just Poe, Hux, Ben and Anna. First they say goodbye to Poe—who hugs her tightly—and Hux, who whispers angrily in her ear: “Just be nice to him, okay?” 

A little startled, she releases him, and turns toward Ben. She takes off her blazer and waits until after him and Finn have done their obligatory man-handshake. When she sidles up to him, he has a beer in one hand and a Catan card in the other. He looks a little more relaxed, like he's happier in the smaller group.

“Are you going to play?” he asks, sounding a little hopeful, maybe. She thinks about that flash of animal she’d seen while they were together, him smelling her, the way he’d taken control. 

“No. We have another thing.” 

“Oh,” he says. For a second, he droops a little: shoulders sagging, lips jutting out. “It’s a fun game.” 

She’s too impatient for board games. Especially complicated, adult ones that last forever and take over previously-fun parties. “I bet.” 

She holds out her hand. He looks down at it and then passes her his beer. One of the ones he recommended when she was trying to hit on him. She gags dramatically, scrunching her face. It’s salty. She takes another sip, considering. 

She passes it back to him. 

“Eh. It’s actually pretty good.”

“I told you,” he says, smiling. He looks at her neck. 

She feels a flick on her arm. Rose passes her, to stand at the door next to Finn. She gives Rey an impatient look.

What was the girl from the latke party’s name? She thinks for a second, but realizes she never learned it. Just like she didn’t learn the name of the guy at the Christmas party, the week prior. And they probably didn’t know her name, and all parties had left satisfied. 

She thinks she's learned too much about Ben to take the same approach: how the swagger and charm and self-deprecation and awkwardness all twist together in that tall body. His slightly dopey real smile. She thinks about how he’d made her laugh, and come, and how he didn’t seem annoyed about his lack of orgasm, like her pleasure was enough. How he’d forced himself to talk to people at this party for his friend, even though he obviously hates it. And then she thinks about how effective her rules have been, her near-perfect GPA.

He’s waiting for her to say something, looking curious. 

She looks up at him. “So, I have kind of a busy semester coming up. But can I get your number?”

**Author's Note:**

> ...did I already write 2300 words where Rey learns if she can balance a relationship and school and a whole lot of depraved sex, including some free use-ish sexin' that I wrote in a 3 p.m. workday haze? That's between me and my gods, thank you!
> 
> In case you're curious, here's the inspiration stirfry for this:
> 
> I wanted to write in-public dirty talk + I read quam's brilliant canonverse "[Fuck Me Up/Tear Me Down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25991497)," and Missy_Ellie's comment on that fic plus quam's reply about Rey's practicality w/r/t sex made me start thinking about a pragmatic horny Rey in a modern AU + I did not watch "Normal People," but I did look at lots of pictures of [that guy's chain](https://www.instagram.com/connellschain/) and thought the whole concept of ["chain-dangle"](https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/5/12/21255037/chain-necklaces-thirst-normal-people) TikToks was hilarous + I was all set to attend my first murder mystery party in March, but then we all realized this COVID thing wasn't going away so this is likely not how these parties actually work + I swear I don't hate all boardgames! Read (or re-read) Frak's lovely lovely "[coarse and rough and irritating](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17330492/chapters/40772129)" for much better board game representation + [Great headline about Miss Honey](https://www.autostraddle.com/interview-mara-wilson-talks-about-queerness-and-where-she-is-now-351539/)
> 
> Re: disco! Basically, I heard the Sylvester song this week and was reminded of how much I love disco. Go listen to the ["You're Wrong About" ](https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/michael-hobbes/youre-wrong-about/e/76636891)episode on disco for a really interesting explainer of how it became such a maligned genre. Here are the songs mentioned:
> 
> ["Love to Love You Baby](https://youtu.be/V5AztWseIdU)" by Donna Summer (Yes, there's a three minute version, but the 17-minute version is the true wild experience)  
> ["Disco 82](https://youtu.be/UTNAtGf40V0)" by Lata Mangeshkar & Kishore Kumar  
> ["Blood and Honey](https://youtu.be/nWTciPclY4Q)" by Amanda Lear  
> ["Love Hangover](https://youtu.be/yOzO_4NS8NI)" by Diana Ross  
> ["I Need Somebody To Love Tonight" by Sylvester ](https://youtu.be/3twSNZhB330) Sylvester had a [hugely influential, trailblazing career](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_\(singer\)) that's really interesting to read about. For example: David Bowie once said he didn't need to tour in San Francisco because they already had Sylvester, his backup singers were the Weather Girls and he left all the royalties of his music to HIV/AIDs charities  
> ["Disco Illusion](https://youtu.be/8HnzNY0epzE)" by Stephen Encinas (I didn't specifically mention this, but it's a great song, so let's just imagine it playing while they're boning
> 
> And just in case you forgot what [what other cultural phenomenon](https://youtu.be/dWRWYYt47RI) was happening at the same time as disco...
> 
> ETA: [Look at this awesome video moodboard](https://twitter.com/sofondabooks/status/1321438145120923649?s=21) msdes made! Thank you so much! 
> 
> [ Occasional tweets here](https://twitter.com/kalx58)


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